Charlie said
In XML, since "<empty></empty>" and "<empty />" are semantically equal, I
would say convert them. The only place I can see this being a problem for
someone running an XML document through tidy might not expect it to make
this kind of change. I would be pleasantly surprised if it did this but
some might not. I hate to say it, but maybe there should be an option that
would default to creating the "<empty />" elements.
The drawback is recent browser handling of certain XHTML elements. One we
have discussed before is <script src="..." /> in the <head> section. This
should be equivalent to <script src="..."></script> but many browsers don't
handle it correctly.
An option would be fine (and probably useful) but I think the default should
be to not to convert.
Rick Parsons
Bristol, England